In the Basilicon Doron he unveiled his real feelings and designs with regard to Presbytery, which, at the very time he was writing, he was professing to respect—declaring that the ruling of the Kirk was no small part of the King's office; that parity among the ministers could not agree with a monarchy; that Puritans were pests in the Kirk and commonwealth of Scotland, and that bishops must be set up.
The General Assembly met in Montrose in March 1600; and Melville, who had come to the town to attend it, was commanded by the King to keep to his room. Summoned to his Majesty's presence, he was asked why he was giving trouble in attending the Assembly after the Act depriving him of his seat; when he replied: 'He had a calling in his Kirk of God and of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, quhilk he behovit to dischairge at all occasiounes, being orderlie callit thereto, as he wes at this time; and that for feir of a grytter punischment then could any earthly king inflict.' The King in anger uttered a threat, when Melville, putting his hand to his head, said: 'Sir, it is this that ye would haiff. Ye sall haiff it: Tak it! Tak it! or ye bereave us of the liberties of Jesus Christ and His kingdome.'
Excluded from the Assembly, Melville remained in Montrose during the sittings, to assist his brethren with his counsel. The King was present at every sitting, and was busy from early morning till late at night canvassing the members of the House; and though there were many who stood honestly by their principles, his authority and diplomacy carried the day. The House was so far from being favourable to the King's scheme, that it would have thrown it out, but for his arbitrary closure of the debate; it did throw out the proposal of life representatives; and it safeguarded the other clauses of the measure with so many caveats, that had they been observed, it could not have served for the restoration of the bishops. These caveats, however, were not observed; then, as many a time before and since in Scotland, the Church got the worst of the bargain in seeking a compromise with the civil power, and found too late that she had sold her birthright. In less than a month after the Assembly rose, three of the ministers had been appointed to bishoprics, and these ministers took their seats in the next Parliament. We have seen that James, whenever he felt that the tide of hostile opinion in the country was becoming too strong for him, sought to turn it by some popular act. The General Assembly held in Burntisland in May 1601 witnessed one of those periodic fits of apparent yielding, on the King's part, to the will of the nation. He was in peculiar disfavour at the time, owing to the mysterious tragedy which took place at Gowrie House in August 1600. There was a widespread, deep-rooted suspicion that the Earl of that name, who was a favourite of the people, and the head of a Protestant house, had been the victim rather than the author of the conspiracy; and the public irritation was increased by the new quarrel which James forced on Bruce and the other ministers of Edinburgh for refusing to repeat, in the thanksgiving service appointed to be held for his preservation, his own version of the story. At the Burntisland Assembly the King appeared and made humble confession of the shortcomings of his Government, especially in respect of his indulgence of the Papists, and gave lavish promises of amendment.
Two years afterwards, before leaving Scotland to ascend the English throne, these promises were renewed; but, as usual with James, they were only the prelude of greater oppression. His threat to the Puritan ministers at Hampton Court conference—that he would 'harry them out of the country'—left their brethren of the Scottish Church in no doubt as to the course he would pursue towards themselves, now that he had attained to a position of so much greater authority.
The Assembly was the palladium of the Church's liberty; and the policy which the King had begun before leaving Scotland, of usurping the government of the Church by gaining the control of the Assembly, was vigorously prosecuted after his accession to the throne of England. The meetings were prorogued again and again by royal authority, but always under protest from the most independent of the ministers. For their zeal in promoting a petition to him on the subject, the King ordered the two Melvilles to be imprisoned; but the Scottish Council dared not lay hands on them in view of the unpopularity of the Government. In the year 1605 the quarrel between the King and the ministers over the right of free Assembly came to a head. A meeting appointed to be held in Aberdeen had been prorogued by the King's authority for a second time, and prorogued sine die. The ministers felt that if they acquiesced in so grave a violation of the law of the Church, her liberty would be irrecoverably lost; several of the Presbyteries accordingly resolved to send representatives to Aberdeen to hold the Assembly in defiance of the King's prohibition. This was done, and the House had no sooner been constituted than a King's messenger appeared and commanded the members to disperse; whereupon the Moderator dissolved the Assembly and fixed a day for its next meeting. The law-officers of the Crown were immediately instructed to prosecute the ministers who had attended, and fourteen of them were tried and sentenced to imprisonment—two of them, Forbes the Moderator and John Welch, Knox's son-in-law, being sent to Blackness. Six of them having declined the jurisdiction of the Council, were tried for high treason by a packed jury, and found guilty by a majority. So great was the indignation felt throughout the country at the prosecution and the manner in which it had been conducted, that the Council had to inform the King that the Court could not go on with the trial of the others. Eight of the condemned ministers were banished to the Highlands and Islands; and the six who had been found guilty of treason were sent to Blackness and then banished to France. In all the proceedings against those who had made such a manly stand in defence of the Church's liberties, Melville identified himself with his brethren, did all that was in his power to procure their acquittal, and after their sentence visited them in prison.
The King now took another step in his campaign against Presbytery. He ordered all the synods of the Church to meet, in order to have articles submitted to them which provided that the bishops should have full jurisdiction over the ministers, under his Majesty, and that the King should be acknowledged supreme ruler of the Church under Christ. These articles were rejected by Melville's synod, and referred to the Assembly by the others. A meeting of Parliament was summoned to pass the articles into law, and to this Parliament Melville was sent by his presbytery to watch over the interests of the Church. It having been ascertained that it was the King's intention to propose that the statute of the year 1587, annexing the temporalities of the prelates to the Crown, should be repealed, and that the bishops should be restored to their ancient prerogatives and dignities, the ministers lodged a protest beforehand, with Melville's name at the head of the signatories; and when the measure came to be adopted by Parliament, and Melville rose up to renew his protest, he was commanded to leave the House, 'quhilk nevertheless he did not, till he had maid all that saw and heard him understand his purpose.' Melville seldom failed in any circumstances to make those who saw and heard him understand his purpose, and when that was done his end was served.
Among the writings issued at this time against the King's measure, there was one in which it was said of bishops in general, that 'for one preaching made to the people [they] ryde fourtie posts to court; and for a thought or word bestowed for the weal of anie soule care an hundreth for their apparrill, their train ... and goucked gloriosity.'[25] The part taken by the bishops at the opening of this Parliament showed that the new Scottish prelates were likely to verify this indictment against their order. 'The first day of the Ryding in Parliament betwix the Erles and the Lords raid the Bischopes, all in silk and velvet fuit-mantelles, by paires, tuo and tuo, and Saint Androis, the great Metropolitanne, alone by him selff, and are of the Ministeres of no small quantitie, named Arthur Futhey, with his capp at his knie, walkit at his stirrope alongst the streit. But the second day, for not haiffing their awen place as the Papist Bisschoppis of auld had, unto quhois place and dignitie they wer now restorit fully in judgment, quhilk wes befoir the Erles, nixt eftir the Marquesses, thai would not ryde at all, but went to the House of Parliament quyetlie on fuit. This maid the Nobillmen to take up thair presumeing honour, and detest thame, as soon as they had maid thame and sett thame up, perceiving that thair upelyfting wes thair awin douncasting.'
The Parliament had restored Episcopacy, but the Assembly had not yet wholly succumbed. To secure this end, and so to give to what was entirely his own despotic act the appearance of a change desired by the Church itself, was the King's next aim. And this opens up one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of James's relations with the Scottish Church.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Addition.